Background
Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of six children.
Dean educator president professor writer
Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of six children.
She attended Wilberforce University in Ohio, gaining a Bachelor of Science degree. Brown graduated from Wilberforce in 1873 and then taught in schools in Mississippi and South Carolina.
She was dean of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina from 1885-1887 and principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama from 1892-1893 under Booker T. Washington. She became a professor at Wilberforce in 1893, and was a frequent lecturer on African American issues and the temperance movement, speaking at the international Woman"s Christian Temperance Union conference in London in 1895 and representing the United States at the International Congress of Women in London in 1899. She was president of the Ohio State Federation of Colored Women"s Clubs from 1905-1912, and of the National Association of Colored Women from 1920-1924.
She spoke at the Republican National Convention in 1924 and later directed campaign work among African American women for President Calvin Coolidge.
Brown was also inducted as an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta.